


There and Back Again

by Whiskeyandwhiteroses45



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:40:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskeyandwhiteroses45/pseuds/Whiskeyandwhiteroses45
Summary: A look at Dani's friend from the beginning of the movie whose she's on the phone with. I kept thinking about her and her relationship with Dani and how she might play out. Kind of an outside POV.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	There and Back Again

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this right after I saw the movie but with no internet and no access to a computer I couldn't put it up til now. Don't forget to tell me what you think and how you feel.  
> First story please be gentle with me.  
> Now on with the show.

She wished that Dani would give up Christian. He was a no good piece of shit who didn't deserve her friend. Yes, Dani had her problems but so did everyone else. She certainly wasn't without them.  
His blatant emotional manipulation was driving Dani to question her sanity, not to mention fueling her paranoia. She wished Dani would leave him but if she was being honest with herself she knew why Dani clung to him so fiercely. She needed normalcy whatever that looked like and for better or worst (it was definitely worst in her humble opinion) she chose Christian.  
Christian was cute sure but to her he was dick with his head so up his own ass that Dani's needs were a distant second. Truthfully if she were honest with herself she could understand; Dani had baggage. She would've been more willing to give him grace but she just could not stand him. Dani was like a sister to her (being an only child she was lacking in that sort at times trying but still rewarding sibling relationship). Her own parents were a handful, so she set out to make her own family. Unfortunately she didn't get along with a lot of people, so not a lot too chose from in her found family. Somehow she found Dani and they just clicked. This made her fiercely protective, she wasn't going to rest until Dani saw her true worth. Christian was crap. His friends were better. But it was a low bar to clear; they don't get points for not being shit.  
Let's start with Mark.  
Mark-- well it didn't seem like he thought about anything besides getting his dick wet. No shame, sleep with whoever you want. She thought of herself as sex positive. But it made him more of a jackass than Christian at times. And all that VAPING! Ugh it just got on her nerves. Just blowing clouds of smoke everywhere he went. But all that she could look past but he didn't like Dani and that means she didn't like him. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. She could feel the dislike that emanated from him. It was like he was barely holding himself back from yelling or something of the sort. Dani was family so if he moved just six inches out of place she would kill him.  
Josh was next. He was OK, but kind of like a lot of guys in academia. Stuck-up, just a bit high and mighty, slightly condescending but truly not striking her as a bad person. It just that he didn't sympathize easy. Honestly he talks a bit too much of his thesis and all things related to it. Eventually coming off as though we were lesser mortals for not comprehending his brilliance.  
Lastly Pelle  
Pelle was her favorite hands down. She wished Dani had chosen him. He might not have been as classically handsome as Christian but he has a strong empathetic core and masculine energy that felt so rare among guys today. Maybe it's because his Swedish. He was just secure in a way that guys aren't today. It was so refreshing and it was exactly what Dani needs: empathy, understanding and support. She wasn't enough on her own but together they might be enough to start building the community that Dani needs.

“It’s in his tone, like, you can hear it in his voice, he's just working up the nerve to say something.” Dani complained on the phone to her as she tried to keep her cool. She was no fan of Christian but yelling at Dani to dump his ass wouldn’t help anything. For all she knows it could directly back fire, so for now she would tell her make him put in the work.  
“So be direct! Confront him.” She said back.  
“What if I've scared him, though? I'm always roping him into my family crap.” Dani sighed.  
“How do you rope him in?”  
“I'm always leaning on him!” Dani cried, “Like, I even called him today in tears because my sister wrote another stupid scary email.”  
“That's what he's there for.” She said pointedly.  
“What if I'm scaring him off?” Dani asked, again wondering why her boyfriend of nearly four years was acting in the way he did.Perhaps it was time to pivot.  
“What did your sister write?”  
“Mmm.” Dani swallowed down the pills. “Just some ominous bullshit like she always does and it's torture. And I lean on him constantly for support. Like, what if I have overwhelmed him and he thinks that I just have too much baggage?” Dani wailed as she walked around her room.  
“Well, if that's the case, then good riddance, right?” Alright maybe it was too much to ask her not to push the break up with Christian angle again.  
“No, not if I... I went too far, if I leaned too much.”  
“You didn't!” She cried incredulously. “He should be there when you need him.”  
Dani sat and refreshed her email once again. “Yeah, but what if I need him too often and it becomes a chore?”  
“Then he's not the right guy.” She stated, something that she felt entirely too obvious. “Because it shouldn't ever be a chore. Would it be a chore if he leaned on you?”  
“Yeah, but he doesn't ask me for anything.” Dani groaned, “I've never even seen him cry, so I'm the only one that's leaning.”  
“Or the only one opening up. The only one making yourself vulnerable. That's intimacy.” She said, trying to get through to her friend. This couldn’t be a one-sided relationship. He had to put in and be as emotionally invest as Dani was.  
Maybe that’s we she didn’t like Christian, he seemed so indecisive, lacking spine; suck it up and get out or put if the work if he thinks this was worth saving. Instead they were languishing in limbo making things all the more painful. Rip the band-aid off was her thinking. But she got that it could come off as unsympathetic; the last thing she wanted to be.  
The call was interrupted by an unknown caller flashing across her screen. “Anna, I’ll call you back.

No, no, NOOOO! This was the worst thing that could happen. Terri snapped.  
She doesn't know what happened, what caused it but the black hole finally swallowed her down for good and she took her parents with her. When she had met Terri it was clear that she was in a dark place. She had very few ropes to be pulled out by herself or others. And medication and therapy may not have not been enough. The darkness was comforting when you could see nothing else, happiness was starting to seem like a cruel joke. Like everyone was laughing at your expense; and everyone in your life friends and family were in on the joke. She feels like she failed Dani, she was trying to support and help her piece things back together. But it was starting to become clear that she was inadequate.

Now Dani was talking about going to Sweden with Christian and the 3 musketeers. She didn't like this one bit; it felt like a bad idea. But Dani was hanging on before she was clinging to the last vestiges of normalcy that she could find. Christian was perpetually clocked out and emotionally unavailable and Pelle seemed sympathetic but she knew it was lacking.  
Dani was free floating with no ties. She didn't like it but maybe this was the answer. A chance for her to get away everyone's pity, awkward stares and stilted words of inadequate comfort and just this burdensome baggage. No work, no graduate studies, no social media, and perhaps no thick cloying sadness and death hanging over head.

She hoped Dani could find a sliver of peace in Sweden and maybe when they got back they could move a find a new state or hell even new country with all of this being a distant terrible memory.  
Here's hoping.


End file.
